Grief changes everything, but storytelling can help us find our way back to ourselves. Dr. Tina Fornwald opens her heart to share the journey behind The Five Widows Club, her upcoming book that explores love, loss, and the raw reality of grief. Drawing from her own story of widowhood and the collective experiences of five women—Monique, Carmen, Ava, Trish, and Joyce—Tina reveals how storytelling helps us see ourselves in others’ pain and find light in the darkness. Through these women’s intertwined paths, she reflects on what it means to grieve honestly, love deeply, and continue living with hope. More than a book, The Five Widows Club is a testament to community, compassion, and the power of sharing our stories so no one has to heal alone. I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others.  Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach out to a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country: Psychology Today Suicide Hotlines and Prevention Resources Around the World. — Watch the episode here   Listen to the podcast here The Five Widows Club: Stories Of Love, Loss, And Living Again Voices Of Widowhood: Healing Through The Holiday Unveiling The Five Widows Club: A Deep Dive Into Grief and Healing Last week, you heard that I wrote a book, and I know you want more details and a little bit of information that I shared last week. This conversation is the deep dive into The Five Widows Club. You are going to enjoy this conversation. If you have more questions that I didn’t answer, please email me so I can give you the rest of the tea. Let’s get into this conversation now. — Widowhood, I promised you monologue conversations, and here’s one that I owe you. Last week, in my conversation with Romana, she mentioned that I have written a book. Our conversation is to give you some more details on the book, my how, my why, and yada yada. I have notes here, so pretending like these are you asking me questions, but some of these came from conversations that I had with the advanced readers. Number one, what inspired me to write The Five Widows Club? I lost my husband. My husband Mark died on March 11, 2017, and my world was altered forever. I was in the military for 21 years. I have survived breast cancer. Oftentimes, when I hear books speaking to these different topics, it’s very clinical, or it’s so high in the sky. Everybody’s happy, and no one’s living the real reality. I felt like that type of story needed to be shared with the Widowhood. There are resources. There are clinical books, but a story. A story that you can relate to, a story that you could share with family and friends, that they could read, that book in some way, understand how you are experiencing and what you are going through. I am pretty certain that when you read The Five Widows Club, you will see yourself in these whittles and you will say, “I am seen. My story is validated, and what I’m going through is real.” Meet the Widows: Monique, Carmen, Ava, Trish, and Joyce’s Journeys This is not a happy-go-lucky, everyone-ends-up-like-life-is-ending for so many of us. It is continuing. It is still going on. These stories are real. They are gritty. They are raw. They are happy. They are crying. They are everything that we experience in this widowhood journey. Who are the women in this story, and how did they shape their journey? I’m going to go over what I have here, which is a summary of the book, and then give you some information on each of the widows. When the unthinkable happens and their worlds fall apart, five women from very different walks of life find themselves in the same grief support group, united not by choice, but by loss. What begins as an awkward circle of strangers slowly transforms into a sacred space of honesty, healing, and unexpected sisterhood. Meet Monique, Carmen, Ava, Trish, and Joyce, five widows, navigating a jagged terrain of grief. Each woman carries a story, a secret, a weight she never expected to bear. Through shared silence, passes of stones, and reluctant cups of tea, they confront love, loss, and the truth that healing isn’t linear, but it is possible. Raw, poetic, anchoring real life. The Five Widows Club doesn’t sanitize grief. It holds space forward for the forgotten voices, for the private aches, and for the moment you whisper, “I’m still here.” Monique, the perfectionist who found how to breathe. A boutique owner, a checklist queen, always in control until the morning she found Darnell’s body. She didn’t cry at the funeral. She made sure the jazz band played his favorite and smiled through the condolences like a hostess. Behind closed doors, she crumbled in her stilettos on the living room floor. Monique’s journey from performance to presence, from pretending to participation, she’s learning that being strong doesn’t mean being silent. “I burned the dinner again, but I still ate it, and I laughed because he would have teased me.” Allow me to read something. The fact that this is my first printed copy. As you can see, there are a lot of tabs. There’s a lot of editing that I’m making right now. I’m recording this. My goal is to finish going through all of the edits and then clean it up on my soft copy. I have an editor to whom I’m sending it. We have a timeline. From there, I’m going to move forward to publishing. The goal is to have the book in print and available for our event, Hope Grows Here, on May 16th, 2026, here in Norfolk, Virginia. Hope Grows Here is a 60s theme event because, yes, we are celebrating my 60th birthday.